Abilities I dislike in KOPP2.
Recently, I've been trying to translate the Knights of Pen and Paper 2 game into a tabletop format, to be played with a fellow fan getting into the game for the first time. I realized in doing this that the abilities in the game range from mediocre to broken, and I wanted to discuss some of the banes of my existence when it comes to trying to balance with abilities... SMOKE BOMB. Smoke Bomb is a really good ability in this game, given people enjoy seeing what kinds of broken builds they can make. It does decent damage and makes all adjacent creatures to the target make a Senses saving throw, being stunned for the turn on a failed save. With the stun effect being one of the three most game-changing, difficult to deal with effects in the game, and for good reason as it makes the affected skip a turn, putting this into a tabletop game would easily break the system without nerfs. To translate this to a tabletop esque setting, I'd recommend making this ability an area of effect with a Body saving throw to avoid a version of stun similar to blindness, where instead of being unable to move on their turn they are unable to see, rules of which are similar to the blinded condition in Dungeons and Dragons. ACROBATICS. As cool as it feels to have a monk, and using this ability in general being fun as hell, Acrobatics is a ridiculous ability for the monk to have. Essentially, you gain threat, and negate all incoming attacks from enemies with conditions. Given there are many ways in this game to inflict conditions to a large amount of enemies, examples being Smoke Bomb, Fireball, and Smite, you are essentially given immunity to damage in many cases because enemies aren't always going to be able to recover from those conditions quickly. While this ability is powerful in and of itself, it's also a bit ridiculous that the developers also felt the need to give him an ability, Na Palm, that also inflicts a condition. Like... Why? If the monk didn't have any condition inflicting moves, I feel this ability would be a bit more fair given the monk would need to rely on the party dishing out conditions to the enemies. If you wanted to translate this ability to be a bit more fair for a tabletop setting, I'd recommend instead giving enemies with conditions disadvantage on their attack roll. If you instead wanted to keep a style similar to Knights of Pen and Paper 2, with most attacks automatically hitting the enemy, I'd instead recommend having the damage dealt by enemies with conditions halved. While I'm on the topic of conditions, however... Why the hell does the barbarian's rage have to give him the condition to work? It makes him forced to attack, which is fine, but the fact he has the condition means that clerics cannot use Purge to remove conditions without risking ending the benefits of the barbarian's rage is honestly just dumb and makes the barbarian's rage abilities incompatible with the average cleric... which sucks, as cleric is one of the few classes in the game that can heal, and is the main one that is focused on doing so. To fix this sidenote, I'd recommend not considering the barbarian's rage the same as the rage condition. To differentiate, I'll call the barbarian's rage "Frenzy." When a barbarian is in a frenzy, a barbarian must make physical attacks or use only skills and items that deal damage until he succeeds on the Mind saving throw to recover from it. The cleric's Purge does not remove the Frenzy condition. The barbarian also gets the Anger Management benefits when he is under the Frenzy condition instead of rage. That way, the rage condition is still detrimental to a barbarian and the cleric is not made incompatible with the barbarian with one of their most powerful skills risking crippling the party. I could probably go on, but I mainly just felt like going on a little rant about a few things I dislike about Knights. It's a good game, but it is definitely a lie to say some classes and abilities aren't way off balance compared to others.